Immunization against poliovirus infection represents one of the world's greatest medical achievements. The last cases of naturally occurring wild type paralytic poliomyelitis in the United States occurred during a small outbreak due to type 1 poliovirus in an unvaccinated religious community in 1978 to 1979 [1]. All nations in the Western Hemisphere, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Region are now free of poliomyelitis.

Both inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) and live attenuated oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) were developed in the 1950s and have been used worldwide [2-4]:

●IPV is the only vaccine available for routine infant and childhood immunization in the United States and is the preferred vaccine for developed countries since it does not cause vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP).

●OPV has been the polio vaccine recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) for routine infant immunization in developing countries and for supplementary immunization activities in countries at increased risk of poliovirus transmission. Advantages of OPV include low cost, ease of administration, induction of mucosal immunity, and transmission of vaccine virus to unimmunized contacts; the major disadvantage is that OPV can cause VAPP in rare cases. (See 'Adverse effects' below.)

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC Health Advisory. Guidance to US clinicians regarding new WHO polio vaccination requirements for travel by residents of and long-term visitors to countries with active polio transmission. http://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00362.asp (Accessed on June 03, 2014).

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Chapter 3. Infections diseases related to travel: Poliomyelitis. http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2014/chapter-3-infectious-diseases-related-to-travel/poliomyelitis (Accessed on June 03, 2014).

WHO statement on the meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee concerning the international spread of wild poliovirus. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2014/polio-20140505/en/ (Accessed on June 03, 2014).